Story Jar -The Soya Lady

copyright 2007, Elaine Hardman

In 1985 we lived in a brick and concrete house in section SS2/44, Petaling Jaya, Malaysia – a suburb of Kuala Lumpur. Ours was a corner house so along the front and on one side were ditches about 4 feet deep and 2 feet across. When the rains came they pounded into the streets turning the lawns to ponds and the ditches into raging rivers within minutes.
Our small ditches flowed to larger ones and those to larger still so that it seems almost a canal system – ridiculously large under the sun and woefully inadequate in the rain. Large ditches had narrow boards or slippery pipes stretched across them so that people could scamper across the ditches – shortcuts. Occasionally, people would try this when the water was flowing and now and then they would fall in and be swept out to sea in the torrents of rain and mud.
Actually, there was a small, narrow ditch behind every house – for gray water. This was the sewage system for bathtubs and showers and sinks. Every house had a pipe or two that emptied into the backyard ditch sending gray water into the system.
Next to our house was another just like it and on and on down the winding streets were rows and rows of brick and concrete homes surrounded by brick and steel fences with broken glass or barbed wire on top. Each had a car port and paved driveway and several air conditioners.
A regular visitor at our house was the Soya Bean Lady. This is how 7-year-old Emilie described her in a letter to her aunt– “The Soya Bean Lady walks around SS2 and other sections. She carries a stick over her shoulder. The stick must be very strong because it holds weight on each end. She must be very strong to hold up the weight. It must weigh 75 or 100 Kg. My mother and Uncle Bill tried to pick it up once but they couldn’t and the Soya Bean Lady runs up a hill with that thing.


The Soya Bean Lady wears a big hat for shading. She must be about fifty years old. She carries a big wooden container full of soft soya. She scoops up the soya with a spoon into a bowl that I bring out to her. The size of my bowl costs 30 sen (12 cents).
She carries a metal container on the other side of the stick. This container has water for washing her hands, sugar water for the soya, and bowls and spoons for people out on the street that buy her soya. She comes to our house in the morning.”
Emilie's description of the Soya Lady was spot-on. The woman was rail thin and toothless old. She carried a portable restaurant on one shoulder. The wooden bucket held ice and the metal pot with the soya. It easily weighed 35 pounds. The metal box on the other side doubled as a table and she had two folding benches to place on either side of it. She could wash her dishes and spoons (Yes, she carried the water.), serve her soya and wait while her customers ate. She could then wash up again and pack it all together to move onward to another home or another street corner.
The soya was fresh tofu. We don’t know what fresh tofu is like in the US but when it’s really fresh it has the taste and consistency of custard – creamy, smooth, sweet.
The Soya Bean Lady spent her mornings traveling the neighborhood, earning a few pennies at a time for very hard work. Emilie would hear her call (Soya! Soya!) and run out to reach her red plastic bowl through the iron gate.

Story Jar - Crispy Fried What?

The Story Jar is a bi-weekly column published in the Patriot, Cuba, NY
copyright 2007 Elaine Hardman
It couldn’t have been what I thought. When we walked through the night market in Sukothai, Thailand, the light was poor - everything in shadows. A florescent lamp hung above the stand below a lamp post sprouting a spaghetti-tangle of wires that would have made an American electrician run screaming.
I was moving quickly in the crowd and didn’t look closely. My eyes flew over something fried golden brown and crispy –maybe some kind of noodles – but they looked like…never mind.
I could have stopped or gone back to look and erase the image from my mind. It would be good, maybe, to know that they were cookies or cheesy squiggles but I didn’t stop. We hurried on that night but today we are at the Antique House Restaurant in Chaing Mai and the image returned to me in living color while reading the menu.
The Antique House is an upscale restaurant. Meals cost about $10 instead of $3 as in other restaurants. There are many attentive waiters and the tablecloths are silk. There is always live music and the menu - in 2 languages -is 20 pages long.
It offered fried vegetables with pork served in a taro cup and that sound great. My choice was settled so I just whiled away the time browsing the menu and waiting for Rick to choose and that’s when I found fried fish stomach with oyster sauce. Well, if I had grown up here I would think that was dandy but given my background fish stomach was out.
Reading on, I found crispy fried worms. It seems that the light at the market had been adequate that night. The inadequate was my knowledge of Thai cuisine. Those little bumps weren’t wavy designs or fancy slicing but the remains of many appendages.

I ordered the fried vegetables and hoped that most of were yellow or green or orange and and that little would be brown, or wavy, or crispy. I didn’t think until now that everything was probably fried in the same oil. Well, that’s why travel is so interesting.

The next day we went to a huge outdoor market and found aisles and aisles of snack foods – dried fruits, cakes, donuts, cookies, banana chips and cashews. The cashews were wonderful - tasting of sweetness and coconut milk. We munched and walked past piles and piles of crispy, fried you-know-what.

Story Jar - Bako National Park

copyright 2007 Elaine Hardman
Borneo. It’s a magical name, don’t you think? Makes a person picture monkeys flitting in the trees or hear screaming macaws and buzzing insects. It’s a lot like that. Sure Borneo has cities full of traffic and shopping malls but much of the island is wrapped in the myriad shades of green that cover the ground and block out the sky in an Asian jungle. Such a jungle is on the tiny island of Bako sheltering 150 species of birds and 23 mammals including the rare proboscis monkey.
Borneo has some rough roads, some barely detectable roads - really just paths over boulders and around trees but we covered the road to our long boat in a nicely air-conditioned car over a smoothly paved road. I can do this, I thought leaning back into the seat separated from steamy heat by a tinted window.
I was 99% comfortable. The problematic 1% was a large, painful blister on the ball of my right foot. We bought something called Dettol disinfectant (not sure if it was for scrubbing toilets or washing feet) and I soaked my foot in it in the hotel sink the night before as well as that morning. Now the raw area was covered with a blister patch and while I knew we would trek all day on the Island my plan was to hobble along and keep my foot dry.
The car brought us to the docks where the heat and humidity smacked us hard as soon as we opened the door but once the boat started moving it was great. The wind was refreshing and we sped across the South China Sea to Bako.
If a person gets into a boat from a dock and it’s all dry and tidy, who can fault said person for expecting to get out of the boat on a dry, tidy dock? Bako is a national park and people go there from all over the world but it seems they get there by taking off their shoes, rolling up their pants and walking over rocks and the occasional slimy bits of once-sea life. With misguided faith in my blister patch, I arrived on the island. When I brushed off the sand to put my socks back on, I realized that the blister patch had joined other bits of debris in the sea. I thought longingly of the Dettol on the hotel sink but pulled on my sock and went in search of monkeys.
We chose the easiest trail, a predicted 3 hours out and back. It was a root covered trail – so steep at times we had to crawl. The rocks were wet and slick and it was hard to remember the primary jungle rule: no walking and gawking. (Combining the two sometimes resulted in tripping or stepping on someone or something, events that don’t always end well.)
We saw 3 proboscis monkeys and countless smaller monkeys. There were lizards and snakes on the trail and flowers and plants everywhere. We saw one of the rarest pitcher plants – only 26 known to exist at the time. We spent a little time watching a bearded pig. She had floppy pink lips that were remarkably capable of digging and she chewed the outer shell of a coconut as we might munch a carrot or bit of celery all of which means don’t get too close to a bearded pig.
During our hike, we sweated out gallons on that “easy” trail and wondered what the advanced trails might have been like. Resting afterwards, we drank water and a Gatorade-type thing called 100 Plus. We ate satay, fruit, rice noodles and unknown vegetables at the park’s restaurant and then strolled out on another trail where we heard voices. It was an odd conversation – two men talking but at the same time. We rounded the curve and found two guys sitting between boulders, each talking on a cell phone. So much for wilderness.
We, of course, had to kick off our shoes and wade to the boat to get back to the dock and that marvelously cool car. I expected my foot to be red and swollen the next morning but it wasn’t and that was even better than getting a ride in an air conditioned car.

Rick's furniture projects.

These are some of the items Rick has built in the last few years.
First, for no particular reason, is a blue cupboard with punched copper door. The long door was part of a built-in cupboard in our kitchen when we moved into this house. Rick took out that cupboard and built a new piece of furniture for the door.

















This is one of a series of three similar tables - cherry candle stick table with drawer












We had a lumpy, old recliner - the kind that shows the imprint of the person who sits in it most. Rick liked the recliner part so he kept the mechanism and figured how to rebuild it with oak to make a Morris chair but a recliner. There was a period of time when parts of it covered the kitchen table and the living room floor while we tried to figure out the upholstering.





The fireplace mantle is a group project. Jay made a mold for the square tiles and I made the mold for the rectangles. Rick did all the oak work. The hearth is covered in matching tiles and someday the similar tiles will be installed in Staiger's house in Almond.










The Shaker Sewing Stand is a complicated piece of furniture because of all the drawers and the beadwork on the legs and the tapers. there are small drawers on the top - for threads - and three drawers that open toward the front and three more to open on the side. Two quilters would sit on either side and be able to reach their supplies while working. Similar pieces can be found in the Shaker Museum.














A child's sleigh...









The bottom drawer has a curved, copper bottom designed for flour or vegetables. Called a Sow Belly Cupboard, this is in our dining room. On top is a wooden stand with a carved window from a Chinese house in Singapore. Resin statues of some of the Chinese gods are displayed. There's also a Tro (Cambodian violin) that I carefully carried on every plane to get it home where the lack of humidity made it fall apart.

Mission Style Bed

In the early 1980s, Dixie Klima and I went bed shopping. Our daughters (Kathryn Klima and Emilie Hardman) were ready for new just-for-them big-girl beds. Emilie's first bed was a white metal bed with brass details and she used it one day at a time until it was nearly 20 years old.

A few years ago, Rick decided to make a Mission Style bed for Emilie. Made of quarter-sawn oak, stately, heavy and beautiful, it now fills Em and Josh's room in Somerville. The next year he made a Queen size Mission bed for Jay and then he made a Murphy bed for Jay. Now he is building a King bed, slightly different in style, very different in size. This is a log of that newest bed.

Here's the center of the foot board.




This closeup shows the end of a wide slat getting a bit of fine tuning for a fit before assembly. (The tool is a number 90 Stanley bull nose plane. It's from England and is about as hard to find as black ebony.)



The center of the headboard was assembled next. "Hidden behind" these photos, of course, were hours and hours of planning, cutting and sanding.



Work continued in the basement to make the posts for the ends of the head and foot boards while the big elements spent some time in our messy garage.



The end posts were added. These are not single pieces of wood but laminated pieces so that all sides show the "flames" of quarter sawn oak.




Once the posts were on the headboard and foot board, Rick started working on the details. He tried on flat top pieces of different sizes to find the right size and shape to finish the posts. There are four holes in each post - one on each side of the top and two at the bottom on the side that shows. The other side of the bottom will be attached to the side rails. Ebony plugs will fit into the holes. The tiny plugs are cut and shaped to fit precisely in the holes.



This is the treatment chosen for the tops of the posts. The ebony plugs have the same pyramid shape.

Two days after putting up the image of the post tops and the ebony plugs, Rick was ready to start putting the stain on the wood.




























A nearly-completed night stand in the same style.

Story Jar - Yellow Shirts in Thailand

Published in the Patriot, copyright 2007 - Elaine Hardman



November 2006 was yellow shirts time in Thailand. We first noticed them at the Bangkok airport and thought the people were part of a tour but then I saw a man in a yellow shirt carrying a ladder. He wasn’t part of a tour group nor was the woman who was sweeping. Hey, there were yellow shirts everywhere - yellow shirts like you wouldn’t believe.
We missed our plane in Bangkok. Someone in a yellow shirt might have told us that they changed the gate after printing our boarding passes. A yellow shirt might have let us out of the security area so we could look for help or might have agreed to make a call for us but no yellow shirts came to our rescue.
The airlines changed our booking to the next morning and sent us to a hotel. The taxi driver should have gotten us there in 20 minutes but he drove around for an hour asking people in yellow and other shirts for the location of the Ibis Hotel. Finally he took us to a slick, western hotel probably thinking that getting rid of us was in his best interest but we could tell from the portico that we’d have to leave a stack of money at the desk to stay there while the Ibis would welcome us for $25. We couldn’t explain all of that since his understanding of English was limited to hotel names and the cost of a ride.
Luckily workers at this hotel knew where the Ibis was and drew a map for the driver and we celebrated - for a little while. We had to ask for directions two more times. Through the ordeal we saw people in yellow shirts and even saw shops selling nothing but yellow shirts.
Finally we found the Ibis Hotel where the manager, another gorgeous Thai woman in a country full of beautiful women, explained that the king was celebrating his 60th year on the throne so people wore yellow shirts with his crest every Monday.
Thailand is a country of uniforms. Every factory, restaurant and hotel has its own uniform so it’s reasonable that Thais would jump into yet another uniform for their king.


These shirts were flexible uniforms – uniform in color. Well-dressed ladies wore yellow silk jackets. Men and women wore camp shirts with the king’s crest on a pocket and bunnies prancing around the hem. Workers wore yellow polo shirts with pink or white collars and golden embroidered crests. Participation in this yellow shirt gig was accepted with wild exuberance.

I wore my own not-yellow shirts while snapping photos of people in yellow shirts in stores, on sidewalks and in the mall. Rick sat waiting (hiding) while I rode up the escalator 4 times trying for a clear shot of a store full of perfect, yellow shirts - shoppers and workers – while feeling happy that we had missed that plane.

Emilie created this blog and then created one for herself. Emilie's blog is dedicated to cooking and other matters of life in Boston.

Story Jar - Flying Foxes

Published in the Patriot, April 18, 2007, Copyright Elaine Hardman

To me, Asians seem more reserved than Americans. They seem to walk slower and drive slower. Indeed, in parts of Southeast Asia people manage to navigate traffic without lights, stop signs or speed limits yet roads safely accommodate trucks, buses, bikes, cars and motor bikes carrying an entire family or a carpet or a shipment of pillows.

In Singapore there is a zoo that requires visitors to be reserved. One ambles through it looking deeply in the shadows. They call it the Night Safari.
All the animals are nocturnal and their enclosures are showered in artificial moon glow. Food is placed under quiet lights and animals learn to gather there for an evening meal.

Sometimes a loud screech will slice through the soft-as-silk night quiet but the people only whisper, as if sharing secrets in the shadows.
Inside the Night Safari is a huge netted enclosure full of trees and elevated walkways. It holds gentle creatures with wide, deep eyes, papery wings and tiny claws – flying foxes – the fruit bats.

To see them we crept, with other tentative visitors, through two rows of hanging plastic chain. We stood against a railing and looked down into trees at first seeing nothing but the leaves and branches. I don’t know who found one first, probably Jay, maybe Emilie. Could have been Josh or Rick. I do remember turning to look in another direction and finding myself nose to nose with a bat.

Its wings were translucent satin; its eyes round and glossy. The small mouth was slightly opened showing tiny teeth and its black, bony feet clamped around a branch.
We all strolled through the area watching bats roost and fly, the air moving slightly and silently as bats sailed and folded again into wing-cocoons. The bats ate delicate bites of banana, orange and papaya and we developed appreciation and admiration for these silent creatures.

Don’t get me wrong. When a bat somehow made its way into our house this summer, I dropped my mug – running and screaming for Rick before the pieces finished clattering on the floor. But, in their own place they have grandeur.


That trip to Singapore was in 2003 and the experience immediately popped into my mind when we were in Siem Reap, Cambodia in 2006 and a fruit bat sailed overhead. Rick and I were walking downtown on our first night and that one bat made me start to look for others. I found them - in every direction – 5 here, 10 there, more than I could count over the river. As I looked, one glided between me and the streetlight showing a thin, silky wing – spanning at least 4 feet.

The next night, as I stood on the balcony of our guest house at dusk, every part of the sky was alive with hundreds and hundreds of fruit bats and all I could say was, “Wow.”